As I'm sure you are all aware, Legion will be the next expansion of the World of Warcraft. The release date will be sometime this Summer, prior to September 22, 2016. I imagine that Blizzard would like to get it out sooner to take advantage of the publicity generated by the release of the Warcraft movie, due out June 10th, but we'll have to wait and see. Legion is currently in the Alpha testing stage.

There is a lot of Warcraft lore behind Legion and the story line affects the dungeons and raids that we will be running. Here's a good, 23-minute video that ties this all together.

What I haven't been able to find so far, is any discussion of the apparent time gap between WoD and Legion. Legion takes place back in the normal universe of Azeroth but apparently some 10-20 years later. I know it may seem like we've been stuck in the alternative universe of Draenor for years, but not quite that long. How are we going to transition from Draenor to the Azeroth of Legion?

You'll note from the video above that Varian Wrynn's son, Anduin, is now quite a bit older than the 10-12 year old that we are familiar with (there have been some hints that he will be taking over for his father). And then there's this: Nomi who we last saw as a young kid in Pandaria. Legion also has an updated version of Dalaran that's been moved from Northrend to the Broken Isles. Will we be able to travel back and forth to the original Dalaran using the Ring of the Kirin Tor? Or use our MoP Cooking School Bell and summon the young Nomi from Pandaria? Where is the logic in all of this, or am I expecting too much?

Wowhead has done a good job of datamining the expansion and reporting on their experiences in the Alpha, so this is a good reference.

Feel free to post any other information or useful links.

A few years have passed since Mists of Pandaria, but I don't think it's an unusual amount. As for the old items, they are old content and will work just as they do now. Dalaran in Northrend will still be accessible, and I'm sure the Cooking School Bell will work, too. It's just like you could still do Molten Core when Firelands came out.

Map showing the location of the Broken Isles.

There is some discussion on the forums suggesting that the map should be updated to make the Broken Isles somewhat smaller and further to the west. Otherwise we would have come across it by now. So we'll see.

Today 4/18/16, Blizzard announced that Legion will go live on August 30th. They also announced that the Beta will start soon so go opt in for the Beta test if you haven't already.